Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Monday, November 19, 2012

Yes, there have been more beautiful days in the past week, but there has also been some snow...not enough to amount to anything; just enough to make things wet an muddy when it thaws.

A Dusting of Snow in the Foot Hills

Today's set of photos were taken in Manual mode on my camera. It's starting to make a little bit of sense to me...and I'm liking the results most of the time.

Handsome Cowboy

I'm still working on figuring out the action shots in Manual though. Red Dog and Rastus were havin' a pretty good time while I was raking and mowing leaves last week. The sun was gorgeous and there was hardly a breeze...perfect!

Play Time!

As you can see, I got some of the action to stop, but not all.

Action!

But the fall colors came out nice...and I'm pretty much done with the leaves! Yeah!

My Helper.

Pierce still has a bit of a snotty nose, the cough seems to be gone, but he has some swelling in his rear legs...which I read can be a symptom of Rhino.

Colt had a bout of something yesterday. He had finished his dinner from the night before, but was lethargic and off his feed in the morning. I gave him a dose of Banamine and by early afternoon he was looking much perkier. He finally had a pile, so I gave him a small dinner. I checked on him at 1:30 this AM and he'd had two more piles. At feeding this mornin' he had one more pile. But, he's still not his robust self, so I'm leaving him in the stall and run again today to keep an eye on him.

Pierce got his first hoof trim today and did a pretty good job! There were a few moments of not wanting to keep the hoof up for Pat, but he never got unmanageable. I was proud of him!

My gosh, Thanksgiving is just around the corner...are you ready? What are your plans? We're staying home and will be hosting dinner for a dear couple who will be staying for the long weekend. Lots of food, beverage, games and laughter is ahead!

AQHA had a photo contest earlier this year on FaceBook, so I thought what the heck...send something in, it wouldn't hurt. So, I chose this one, and I titled the photo this time: "No, I'm not your mother."

About a month ago, I got an email asking me for a copy of the photo with a higher resolution. I sent her what I had, but this photo was taken with my old point 'n shoot camera I carry on the trail and was afraid that it wouldn't work for them.

Then I forgot about it.

Tuesday, there was a notice in my PO Box that I had a large envelope from AQHA...it didn't click in my brain. When I picked up the envelope at the PO on Thursday, I thought to myself they must be sending calendars to members this year, because that was about the size and feel of the envelope.

As I was driving home, it dawned on me that this could be from the contest...and they couldn't afford to send every member a calendar!

I sat down at my desk and started with January...slowly looking at all the photos. They put one large photo for each month and each date space that didn't have a number, they filled with small photos.

Hoping that my photo would be in one of the small date spots, you can't imagine my surprise when I got to July and there was my photo...the BIG photo!!! They had a wonderful write up in the front cover of the calendar that told how they had conducted the contest and that they had received hundreds of quality photos and how hard it was for them to narrow it down to the top 12. By then I was in tears~

My Man is visiting his family in Missouri, so I had to call him. He's so excited to get home to see the calendar! He comes home tomorrow!!

All of the photos in the calendar are just awesome (really professional looking stuff)...and the calendar is 12x24 inches (opened up) and printed on really nice paper. Here's a link if you want to buy one...or two...Christmas is coming and they'd make a great gift!

Friday, November 9, 2012

Poor lil' Pierce has ended up with a snotty nose and a cough. It's just a virus, but he had a temp of 102* on Monday evening. By Tuesday morning, it was down to the normal range. He's also a bit lethargic.

The beginning of the snotty nose on Monday mornin'

So, to keep it from turning from just a virus into a bacterial infection, I've put him on SMZ's.

Last evening his snotty nose was all cleared up, but there still is a bit of a cough. It's only been three days of the medicine, so I'm pretty confident the cough too will pass.

The cause is most likely the stress from weaning, but the fluctuating weather temperatures aren't helping either. No other horses or foals have any problems from the ranch he came from.

We're waiting to hear from his damn's previous owner what type of vaccinations she had had. Once we know that, and Pierce isn't sick, he'll get his first vaccinations.

On Monday, Pierce graduated to the round pen! He enjoyed stretchin' his legs!

I've re-arranged everyone. Pierce gets his stall, run and the round pen. Colt is behind the barn on the outside of the round pen. Whiskey is in the rim pasture. I think the next stage will be to put Colt with Pierce in the round pen and see how they get along. They have such a size difference, and Colt loves to play...I'm concerned he'll play too rough. Lots of supervision!!!

Oh yes...the white on Pierce's forehead...it's permanent...I really did try to wash it off, but those are white hairs and the skin under them is dark (not pink). Pierce wants to be just like his brother Colt!

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Two days ago it was 70 degrees. I went from a long sleeved flannel shirt in the mornin' to a t-shirt...then a sleeveless top all in one day!

Today...snow in the mornin' and a whoppin' high of 41 degrees. More snow in the forecast for the next three days with lows in the teens.

Beautiful leaves on the apple tree

I'm going to hang on to my memories of the 70 degree days!! But, in the 7 years that we've lived here, this year has been the most colorful.

A normal year would give us freeze-dried, brown leaves! I mowed up the leaves on Sunday and by Monday afternoon, you couldn't tell.

And last year, I didn't rake or mow a single leaf...the wind was blowing so bad all the leaves blew into the next county!

The little pink flowers at the bottom right are hangin' on 'til the very end

I still have garden clean up in the flower beds as well as the veggie garden. I also want to get the Christmas lights up on the rail fence around the house...should have done that when it was 70 degrees!

Camera-shy Rastus was finally curious enough about the camera
to give it a sniff! Now it looks like he's wearin'
a pumpkin on his head in this shot!

My family is meeting in Central Oregon for a get-to-gather before all the holidays come upon us. Lookin' forward to seeing everyone. Since we live so far away, and it's hard for us to get away from the herd, we're meeting half way...works good for everyone!

I know that Mom's been tryin' to kill coyotes ever since that day. We see LOTS of 'um. She got one in the foot last summer...we still see it occasionally limpin' 'round. Even though we gots lots of acres, there's lots of things to look out for when shootin'...wheel lines, neighbor's horses...our horses.

Well last week, the day that Pierce came to live wiff us, a dang coyote came through our alfalfa field in the middle of the day...bold as brass...'n Mom had a clear shot!

She ran fer the .17 'n snuck out the patio door wiff her slippers on...snuck nice 'n quiet like up to the rail fence in the yard...sighted him in (he didn't even see her)...she let out her breath 'n squeezed the trigger...100 yards out...

We waited 'til Dad got home to go out 'n pick it up out of the field...Mom wanted to hang it on the fence post as a warnin' to other coyotes to stay away, but decided it'd start stinkin', so Dad took it to the other end of the property.

So, that's my story for today.

Did I say I LUV my Mom?!? I also told her she's got to get some more...at least one for my revenge!

Friday, November 2, 2012

Actually...it was "Who was the dumb a$$ that cut the lock off the gate and left it open?"

Not to stereo type, but most likely it was some damn city slicker hunter. Locals don't do that sort of thing without telling the land owner...because they would have had a reason to cut the lock to get through the gate...but locals would have shut the gate behind them!

We spent Tuesday and Wednesday trying to straighten out the mess.

About 10 bulls and 50 pair (who had gone out the open gate) came back to the 3J Ranch when it snowed a couple of weeks ago and were in the bull's winter field.

Bull winter field...we spread out to gather the field.

Viewing God's Country...my fav photo of the day.

I ended up with most of the bulls and of course they split. Rastus was good help in kicking the one group down the hill to Jerry then he came back to me to help drive the others.

After everything was gathered, we sorted out the bulls and some older cows. There was a newborn calf too (one of those surprises that you really don't want to happen), so we sorted them off.

We drove the rest back up into another field that had good feed in it still.

Taking the herd threw the grassy low lands...then upa hill to another field.

Mineral tubs were put out...hoping the cows would be happy enough to stay there and not come back down to the ranch. The weather is fairly warm with no snow in for forecast, so they should be pretty happy. I had to take my jacket off in the afternoon and just had a vest on...it was a beautiful day!

Headin' back to ranch at the end of day one.

Day two, we trailered the horses and took another trailer for cows about 5 miles south to a neighbor's place. Cows had been seen in the hills behind that ranch when it had snowed. So we started there hoping to find some close enough to take them to the corrals on that ranch.

Looking south to Steens Mountain off on the horizon.

All we found were lots of old tracks. So we split up and road north with the plan to meet at the canyon of Curtis Creek.

From high up on the rim rock, Ty saw some pairs down on the creek. So, Jerry and I rode down Curtis Creek, and Ty continued north up a draw to close the gate. We met up again at Rifle Spring.

Riding down Curtis Creek...one rocky son of a gun...but very pretty!It was a cloudy day and looks a bit dreary. My little point and shootjust doesn't capture like a good camera.

We found the pairs and got them heading north.

They first wanted to give us the run around, but after we got them bunched up, they decided to be good cows and herd!

We got them up and over the hill toward the ranch then turned them east through the low lands where we put the cows from the day before.

Actually, we were expecting to find more, but believe that the other cows went back into their field through the open gate. After combing the field where we found these, they're pretty confident that we got everyone back.

Two long days in the saddle, and my knees were killing me, Colt's hooves were getting sore...but wouldn't miss it for anything! Rastus...he was ready for another day!

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Last Sunday, we loaded up Rastus and Cindy Sue for a day trip over to Prineville. Tom Blasdell with Tuf Stock Dogs (who I got Rastus from) was having a play day for cow dogs.

It was a lot of fun...got to meet a gal from FaceBook...and play with Rastus on cows!

No, this lil' cutie below is not mine (we're full up on dogs and horses!). It's from a litter that are about 8 weeks old now and are out of one of Tom's best dogs, Heifer.

Oh so precious!!!

Tom Blasdell starting young pups on sheep.

At this stage, Tom's looking to see what kind of instinct the pups have. It's funny to see some just get right in there and want to chew a leg off, and then see others that are content to sit back and look on...and others that are too busy playing to show much interest. But, it's not always a cut and dry case after the pups get old enough to actually start training...some may have more or less intensity that they first show.

It was just fun to see the lil' butter balls show off their stuff!

Everyone got to work their dogs a couple of times. Tom had a competition style course set up where you had your dog take the 3 head of calves around an obstacle (I attempted), through another obstacle, between the fence and an obstacle...turn around and go back through...and if you wanted, you could open the gate and take the herd to the outside course which was through a gate, around an obstacle, through the water and back through the gate.

I stuck to the "inside" course...just the highlights...

I've got a long way to go to perfect this technique!!! And, I'm not showing you our wrecks ;~)

My Man was the photographer as usual, and I'm glad he did the video...I learned a lot of what I'm not doing correctly by watching myself...even though I cringe. It's just part of the learning curve.

We were supposed to have another clinic here at our place this weekend with Tom, but had to cancel it because I scheduled it with two other really fun events going on the same weekend in the area (one in Redmond and one in Winnemucca). So, we'll get a clinic going in the spring.

In the meantime, I'll work our 3 heifers here at home and go to Tom's for a lesson once a month or so.